The Wiccan and the Ghosts of Haunted Fort Lauderdale

“I am a Wiccan and I believe in the after life,” says Scarlet Aslan, one of the new guides at Ghosts, Mysteries and Legends of Old Fort Lauderdale. “And no, Aslan, is not a name I adopted from the Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis. It is the name I was born with.” And it works for her – part mystery and part magic . This odd character trait gives her an advantage other ghost tour guides do not have.

“I believe in the afterlife,” she says, “and that is a part of my daily life. The spirits are always with me. As they are with all of us.”

She adds, “Ghosts have felt the need to reveal themselves to me since I was four years old. My first visitation was a great aunt. I didn’t realize she was a ghost until I told my mom about the lady in my room. My mom gathered up the old photo albums and asked me to show her who was in my room. The lady I selected was my great aunt who had passed three days before I was born.”

The Wiccan and the Ghost Tour. How can you go wrong? A guide from which one can get a proper introduction to the world of spirit, an integral part of her way of life. Not your usual ghost tour guide.

Just after the sun sets, she awaits members of the tour on the NE corner of Las Olas and Andrews in downtown Fort Lauderdale. She is easily spotted. She says, “I wear the usual attire for a female ghost tour guide: black dress, cape, top hat and I carry a lantern.” But there is more. Every night she carries several aides to connect her tour with the nether world. These include semi-precious stones, crystals and incense.

Her personal tour signature is burning incense. This, she says, arouses the curiosity of the citizens of the the “other side.” She states that the spirits recognize her incense and when they smell it, guests always get more orbs in their photos.

To help search down the ghosts, Aslan uses the ancient technique of hunting vibrations of the spirit world using copper divining rods. She also uses the more modern laser thermometer to pick up temperature changes. “There are a couple of places where there are almost always dramatic temperature reductions of 30 and 40 degrees.” At one of the places, she said, a young boy saw a ghost pass from one house to another. But he was not fast enough with his camera to get a photo.

The tour takes about an hour and a half. She gives a little bit of history on the site guests are viewing and then tell the stories of the mysteries and legends that are attached to that site. “I can usually feel the energy presence of ‘the others,’ so a lot of times when we are all walking I will say take pictures! I also try to bring my camera as well. So if I am taking pictures …. you should be taking pictures!”

Aslan finalizes with, “Come with an open mind and enjoy the history and the ghosts of Fort Lauderdale that make it interesting!”

Olga Marie Pathinas-Brovanovitch, born in Moscow, U.S.S.R. in 1954 to two members of the Communist Party, was trained in espionage in a training town in the Urals, where she learned Arabic, French, Polish and English with natural accents. She has written articles, using nom de plumes, on Chinese international relations, the central banks and how capitalism does not take care of itself.